Recently, the writer of this post was able to spend some time with Beth Catlin, a resident of one of UCP’s 16 community homes throughout Central PA. Beth moved into the Enola home after her mother, with whom she had been living, was moved to an assisted living facility in 2020. Beth is personable, engaging, and has an astounding gift for recall, in particular for sports-related statistics and for birth dates. She routinely exercises her capacity to remember dates–and at the same time blesses others–by crafting and sending homemade birthday cards to pretty much everyone she meets.

In fact, Beth’s card outreach over the years has been so prolific that she was named “Best Birthday Wisher” by Reader’s Digest Magazine in July 2009. “This is Beth’s gift,” her mother explained in the article. “Hers is a world of word and number association and constant observation.” At the time, Beth’s birthday card circle numbered nearly 3,900 recipients. It has continued to grow since then.

When I first introduced myself to Beth by phone, she immediately asked “What day were you born?” When I responded with my birth date she replied “You’re a Virgo. So am I.” Her next question was “Where do you live?” Now that she has my address securely stored away in the meticulous memory bank that is her brain, I have no doubt I’ll be receiving one additional card when next September rolls around.

Beth also is quite the sports aficionado, though she roots for two teams in particular: the Philadelphia Eagles and the Washington Nationals. When I gave her a t-shirt that was a holdover from a past UCP Sports Auction (and which bears the logo of the Harrisburg Senators… the Nats minor league team), Beth beamed with excitement. She held the shirt in front of her for a photo. A few minutes later, she pulled out one of her many baseball magazines to share.

~ Lynda Bowen, Senior Communications Specialist